18-The President is Sick

So I'm seven years old and I should be in school second grade, but I wake my mother up and she says, what are you doing home? And I say, well, they sent us home because the president is sick. I'm Jim Polling and this is my view from the middle. Here is a bulletin from CBS News in Dallas, Texas. Three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting. So it's November twenty second, nineteen sixty three. The place Saint Francis de Sales Church and School in Detroit, Michigan. Kneeling on a hard tile flour in the second grade classroom along with thirty other Bill Williard kids, is me saying the rose along with the mother superior, who is saying it over the school wide intercom. Turns out the thirty fifth President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, had just been shot as he rode through Daley Plaza in Dallas, Texas in an open top limousine. Also shot was Texas Governor John Conley, who was riding in the same car, though he was in as bad off as Kennedy. The back of Kennedy's head was in nocence blown off. Kennedy was pronounced dead at Parkland Hospital at one o'clock from. Dallas, Texas. The flash apparently official. President Kennedy died at one pm Central Standard time two o'clock Eastern Standard time, some thirty eight minutes ago. Vice President Johnson has left the hospital in Dallas, but we do not know to where he has proceeded. Presumably he will be taking the oath of office shortly and become the thirty sixth president of the United States. We had to be kneeling on that floor for up to seventeen hours. I was sure of it, but although it was in reality probably less than an hour before they gave up and sent us all home for the day. So I get home and my mother is taking a nap. I wake her up and let her know that I'm home, and she asked why I'm there, and I said, well, they sent us home because the president is sick, I said, in all my second grade wisdom. Apparently my news reporting skills which would later dictate my life hadn't kicked in yet. You see, So my mother had absolutely no flippant idea what was going on? So she got up ran into the living room to turn on our massive thirteen inch diagonal black and white Crosley television set. Well, what happened after that was kind of a blur. I remember my mother breaking down in tears, and I mean sobbing. He said, my mother there was a devout Catholic, and so was Kennedy. So Catholics took this whole thing rather personally. That wasn't a complete idiot, only partial. I knew what had happened at this point. I wasn't quite sure why my mother was so distraught over it. But okay, my twenty one year old brother had come home from somewhere I don't know where, and he found out what had happened, and he broke down into tears too. Seems I'm the only one not completely broken up about all this. Then again, I was only seven. For all I knew, this was just another bang bang, shoot him up TV druma. When my dad got home from work, he had already heard the news. He didn't look nearly as upset as my mother and brother. He wasn't a Catholic and he was also not a Democrat. Although I really don't think that played into anything. At this point. Kennedy was one of those presidents that you liked even if you didn't agree with him politically. At least that's the way it seemed. Obviously someone didn't like him. The person or persons who pulled the trigger that fired the shots, I know, I know, I said person plural. I'm not necessarily buying into that Oliver Stone conspiracy theory, but I'm not ready to back the one shooter theory either. It's kind of like man made global warming. No matter what you think, it's not settled science like they would like to have you believe. So here I am in the middle again. The mother Superior had his kneeling on this hard floor praying, and I wasn't sure why. My friends in second grade looked up to me for an explanation, and all I could tell them and my mom is the president is sick, and my mother and brother completely fall apart, and all I can do is stand by, confused and watch anyway. For the next several days, the TV remained on with news coverage of the assassination, the swearing in of Lyndon Johnson as president, the shooting of Lee, Harvey Oswald and the pomp and circumstance of the funeral and burial. The torch is past. So much for the president being sick. I'm Jim pulling and that's my view from the middle. In the next episode, one day a bunch of people get fired. The next day the remaining employees are expected to rally. Kind of gives you a twitch. Games companies play next on my view from the middle,